Musk suggested that future robots could move so fast they could match the fictional Flash, who eludes his comic-book foes by moving too fast for the eye to see. Compared to that superpower, doing human-level backflips is “nothing,” Musk said in a tweet:

This is nothing. In a few years, that bot will move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams… https://t.co/0MYNixQXMw

The agility of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot gave Musk another opportunity to touch on a theme he’s been emphasizing for months: that the potential risks posed by the rapid rise of artificial intelligence are so great that a regulatory regime is needed:

Got to regulate AI/robotics like we do food, drugs, aircraft & cars. Public risks require public oversight. Getting rid of the FAA wdn’t make flying safer. They’re there for good reason.https://t.co/6OXZC3UdMW

Musk himself is heavily involved on the frontiers of artificial intelligence, not only through commercial ventures such as Tesla (which enlists machine learning for its self-driving Autopilot platform) and Neuralink (which is working on brain-computer interfaces), but also through his backing for efforts such as OpenAI and the Future of Life Institute.

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